


Dying Year By Year

by AshToSilver



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: 30 Days of Bat Jokes, 30 Days of Misfit Jokes, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 23:26:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1138716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshToSilver/pseuds/AshToSilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joker probably had intentions, and Bruce normally has reactions, but it's sort of one of those things that isn't really planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dying Year By Year

**Author's Note:**

> This is for batjokes.com's [30 day challenge](http://batjokes.tumblr.com/post/73319712187/30-days-of-bat-jokes). I'm doing it under the [Misfit Jokes](http://batjokes.tumblr.com/post/73306670695/all-of-bat-jokes-other-jokes) category, so expect a whole bunch of random stuff that's all somewhat Batman/Joker. This is for the prompt "First". This is extremely AU, because, you know, I'm weird like that. It's also probably worth mentioning that _most_ of the fills are probably going to be somewhat angst. Here's a good example!
> 
> (Also, I'm so sleep deprived, this might be crap, I'm so sorry.)
> 
>  **EDIT Aug/2016:** I have changed my username, I am now going by AshToSilver on AO3 and [my new Tumblr](http://ashtosilver.tumblr.com/)! You can still call me Alex, but I no longer have a day of the week in my name.

It's six years after the end. Joker opens his mouth to - say something, ask a question, laugh in Bruce's face - and closes it slowly, purposefully.

He's been doing that a lot. Bruce hasn't actually heard the old clown say anything in over two weeks.

But he's hardly one to point fingers. Bruce hasn't said a word aloud in almost three months.

\- - -

The first time he sees the jester, while the city's still burning and the ground's still shaking and everything's sort of  _fucked_ , he leaves him and travels on alone.

He can't find Damian. Alfred hasn't responded to calls, Gordon isn't either.

The city is burning. Joker looks surprised, like he'd never actually expected such a thing to happen.

Maybe he didn't. Maybe neither of them ever did. They'd gotten so used to having plans foiled, seeing ideas deflate with a well-placed kick.

And it was strange to think, it hadn't been anyone's fault.

\- - -

It's four months after they've teamed up, and Joker's got blood on his last jacket.

"I liked this one." The clown said sadly, rubbing callused thumbs over the dull purple. This morning it has been a bit patched, a bit thread-bare and now there's a sleeve missing and parts ripped off and most of it's become a muddled burgundy.

Joker doesn't look much better. Bruce doesn't know how he looks, but he can feel it.

Broken, stained, torn up. He can feel it in muscles, he can feel it in his bones.

The clown tears a strip of mostly-clean fabric, and presses it to Bruce's side. It isn't until Bruce looks down and sees blood swell through, drip down long, white fingers and fall to the ground, that he realizes he's bleeding.

"Don't worry about it." Says Joker. "I've got it covered."

Bruce's got time enough to think  _he should have laughed at that_ before he blacks out.

\- - -

The first time they end up kissing is long before they know anything about burning cities.

It's dark, cold, damp, maybe it's winter or a particularly pissed spring night, but either way, Joker's muttering something that sounds like a terrible pun or a bad joke, except he's doing it up Bruce's  _teeth_ and his mind is a flutter between  _that's a strange place for him to be_ and  _punch the fucking bastard._

Joker probably had intentions, and Bruce normally has reactions, but it's sort of one of those things that isn't really planned.

The clown draws away, looking confused. It occurs to Bruce he can't really remember which one of them started that, and judging by the Joker's face, neither does he.

And it should have ended there - no really, it  _should have_ \- but Bruce's fingers sort of end up woven in green hair and the clown keeps stumbling backwards, then they're up against the wall, Bruce shoving his weight down until the clown whines against the brick, pulls back and pants into the cool air while Bruce sucks his way down the other man's neck.

They don't talk about it. Occasionally there'll be a comment of  _oh goodness, I appear to slipped and fallen directly on top of you_ or  _shut your mouth or I'll shut it for you_ _,_ but they don't really pretend beyond that.

They are men of action.

They don't  _talk_.

\- - -

Eight years, seven months and twenty-one days after the end of the world, they run into other Gothamites.

There's this moment of panic where an ex-GCPD cop attempts to shoot the clown - and another where Joker starts doing his not-anxiety-attacks, and Bruce has to explain with a tongue not used to explaining, that the jester means no harm.

The people around them frown, twist weapons in hands, and Bruce is prepared to leave, but then a woman steps forward and it's  _Barbara Gordon._

The silence that follows is beyond any silence that settles between bat or clown. Barbara tilts her head, but there is no mistaking that she  _knows_ them both.

"Took you long enough." She says, and punches Joker in the kidneys.

Joker sort of curls around, in on himself and on the ground. He wheezes miserably. Barbara frowns at him.

"He didn't laugh." She says, confused; because why would a clown not laugh?

"No." Bruce says, hunches down and pulls the jester into something that's half help up, half an embrace. It's more like how someone would pick-up a child, hands under the arms. "He doesn't do that much anymore."

The clown has laughed exactly eleven times in the past five years. Bruce holds all of those times as some of his most precious memories.

And they all hurt like hell.

\- - -

The first time Bruce realizes there is something seriously wrong with the clown, it sort of comes as a surprise.

"There is something seriously wrong with you." He informs the prone body before him. The clown's eyes are focused somewhere else, above him entirely. He doesn't reply.

It's early morning, but they haven't moved on yet. The campfire's still lit; they've been sleeping in am abandoned field for days now. Neither of them feel like walking any further.

The world feels like they left Gotham yesterday, but it was longer then that. Bruce sort of has trouble remembering, however.

The clown's lungs are expanding, but he's not drawing in air. There's a wild look about his eyes, but no fever when Bruce presses a hand to his brow.

He's terrified, but there's nothing to be  _terrified_ of.

"I think you're having a panic attack." Bruce informs the other man, and the Joker grits his teeth.

"No, I'm not." He says, and gets up and walks a twenty-square-foot lap for three hours, just to prove he can.

He shakes the entire time.

\- - - 

Bruce buries his own son a week after the city started burning.

The ground's a lot more like mud and there's this miserable hour where he picks out every single worm and squashes every spider that he finds in the hole he digs. Damian's body is wrapped in what was formally Bruce's cape, and is now essentially his coffin.

He spends far too long brushing dark locks from a completely cold forehead, then he can't  _stand it_ , and shovels dirt over the only son he'll ever sire.

He lives by that grave for five months.

The Joker finds him on the cusp of the six month. Bruce can't remember the last time he spoke to a person - he can't really remember much of anything. The world's darkened into some impossibly small place. He can't remember what he's been eating or where he's been getting water or why nothing's dragged him off in the middle of the night.

But the Joker doesn't care. The clown is thin, rough around the edges, too tired and too hungry. Bruce doesn't know it, but everyone's like that nowerdays.

Joker sighs. Bruce's been ripping the grass and the weeds out of the mound for ages, it would look fresh, but the villain knows a fresh grave from an old one.

"I wish you wouldn't do this to yourself." The clown says sadly, and leads Bruce away.

This is the last time they see Gotham. By the time they return, she'll have long since vanished into the sea.

\- - -

The first time they kiss in front of other people, they've been traveling for a while. They've gotten used to life on the road, and others have as well.

It's strange really - it was a trust exercise. A woman with a long knife had said she didn't trust the clown, and Bruce had replied that he did.

So to prove it, he kissed his traveling companion, only long enough to say  _here, see? He didn't bite anything_.

"Damn." Says the woman. "That's a lot of trust."

The Joker smiles - no teeth, but it's dangerous all the same.

They don't get stabbed for the apocalyptic version of lunch money stealing, so the whole thing's considered a win.

\- - -

Two years in, the bat saves the life of the clown.

It's simple. It's easy. Bruce shoves him out of the way. Joker lives. Less then five seconds of work - he'd done more for less back in Gotham.

He has no idea why the thought of the clown dead is so sickening, and it shows. Joker asks if he's got a stomach bug for three days and after that, Bruce comes to terms with it just so the nagging will stop.

He cannot live without the clown. But the clown already knows that when he tells him.

\- - -

The first time they see Gotham - or what remains of her lands - in years, they're with Barbara's group, heading up the coast.

The woman stops, and looks out to the sea, tilts her head a little.

"Gotham, used to be right there." She says, and there isn't a hint of sadness in her voice. There isn't a hint of anything - but whether she's come to terms with it or whether she's just fucking with herself, is a mystery that will most likely die with her.

Bruce is sitting on the horse he'd rescued from a ditch. The Joker's in front of him, curled into Bruce's chest.

The clown's eyes flicker open. He'd been dozing, and since Barbara's words have never roused him before, Bruce's only guess is something deeper told the ex-villain that he was near his birthing ground.

The horse paws at the ground with a single white hoof. Bruce and Joker do not know it, but six feet below that hoof is the insect nest that is Damian's skull.

Once upon a time, they'd stood there and wandered off into the sunset.

Now, it doesn't even mean anything to them.

\- - -

"It's been twelve years." Says Joker. "Give or take a couple of days. Or months."

The clown frowns, after a moment. Bruce thinks that he's seen Joker upset or just plain nothing now more then he ever saw him smile or laugh. It says something about him that he doesn't want to think about.

"How long were we... you know- before shit hit the fan?"

Bruce shrugs at this. "I don't know. I wasn't keeping track."

"It was probably about three." Joker mutters, almost to himself.

"So fifteen years."

"What?"

"Twelve plus three would be fifteen. We've been in some form of a physical relationship for fifteen years."

They pause at this, mull over it. The fire crackles. Somewhere, Barbara sighs at the stupidity of men, but if they know it's directed at them, they ignore it.

"We never had sex." Joker says somewhat awkwardly. "I kind of expected that to happen."

Bruce nods at this. "I honestly thought that'd be the first thing you'd do."

"Hell, even I thought that. What happened?"

"Never got around to it, I suppose."

"You want to... you know, now?"

"If you want to."

There's a pause.

"I'm okay not doing it if you're okay."

"Okay."

Barbara gets up and goes to find people who don't make her want to fake-vomit into the bushes.

\- - - 

The first time they tell each other they love one another, is also the last.

"I feel we never got around to doing a lot of things." Mumbles the clown into Bruce's shoulder.

"I guess." Says Bruce, and draws closer. His leg throbs in pain, his sides ache. But then again, he'd fallen twenty feet - at his age, he's lucky to be alive. They hadn't even seen the chasm before it had opened up beneath their feet.

He can't see the clown. He can't see anything and he hasn't in days because the sun is  _gone_.

"It's difficult to breath." Whispers the clown, and Bruce holds a hand to his neck, to feel his pulse. It's perfectly normal, but Bruce leaves his fingers there anyway.

"No sun, no oxygen." Bruce says, because it's simple. If he had the energy to be angry that this is how he was going to die, he'd be royally  _pissed_.

They sit in silence, in darkness, for what could be minutes or hours.

"I never told you something." Joker says, in a voice that might have  _almost_ been humour, if he'd been humorous at all these past years.

"Doesn't sound like us." Says Bruce, and smiles in the dark, mostly to himself.

"I love you." And it's a little rushed, like he's  _nervous_ , but his pulse only mildly flickers.

"I know."

"Really?"

"All of Gotham City knew that one." Bruce pauses for only a second. "I knew it most of all though."

"Really?"

"Of course. I loved you too. Still do."

Joker's silent for a rather long time. Long enough, in fact, that if Bruce couldn't feel his heart going, he'd have assumed the clown had died.

Somewhere, there is a rumble. The ground quivers below them, and simultaneously, they dig their nails into each other's arms. There's a groan of earth, somewhere close by, and at this they wrap themselves around the other.

"If we could do one last thing for each other, what would it be?" The clown asks, and this time, the fear is in his voice.

Bruce doesn't even need to think. "Smile for me, please." He knows better then to ask for a laugh, but the clown doesn't care, because there's a wide grin that spreads against his shoulder. Bruce only lets go long enough to cup his former nemesis's face, feel smile lines and wrinkles and old scars beneath hands soft with age.

It's been over a decade - maybe closer to two - but Bruce still remembers the clown's smile lighting up the Gotham night.

"I don't know what I'd ask for." The clown says, after a moment, as rocks clatter to the ground at the shakes and tremors. "Pick something for me - you know what I like."

Bruce doesn't think about this one either. He musters vocal cords not touched for an age, all the old rage that feels so different from the new types he got used to.

"I'm Batman." He growls, deep and rumbling into the clown's neck and something unexpected happens.

The Joker, for the first time in years, laughs. It's only a small giggle, but it morphs into a chuckle and into a full-blown, shaking roar of mirth.

Bruce laughs with him, low and sure like they used to on the nights they'd shared comedy.

The earth shatters.

And the last damn thing Bruce ever hears, is the very thing he fell in love with.

**Author's Note:**

> I'M REALLY FUCKING SLEEP DEPRIVED K THANKS BYE.


End file.
